German Miser Bags

I’m always on the lookout for crochet in my travels – and especially for tapestry crochet. Most of the treasures encountered on my recent trip to Germany were behind glass or Plexiglass and poorly lit because light fades fabric. Flash photography was not allowed for the same reason – so please excuse the poor quality of these photos. At least they allowed me to take pictures – many museums don’t nowadays.

Probably because miser bags were used as chain purses at the turn of the 19th century, they were exhibited together with coins and other numismatic items in several of the museums I visited. The most popular style has a slit in the middle where money is slid in and out, compartments at each end (one for coins and the other for paper money or coins of a different denomination), and metal rings in the middle to keep the money in the compartments.

These small bags are colorful and elegant. The compartments are usually single crocheted in rounds, while the center of the bag is often double or triple crocheted in rounds near the compartments, then back and forth in the middle to form the slit. The center is crocheted with one color thread, while the compartments are crocheted with contrasting colors. Some miser bags are decorated with stripes, as seen below.

One Response to “German Miser Bags”

Miser bags or purses were used through most of the 19th century to hold coins. Some bags had different colored silks or beads on each end to differentiate what coins were in each pouch, others had a round pouch on one end and a square one on the other. These are really great items to collect and display.